Hey folks, Harry here with a bit of controversy with our pal Anton Sirius. Seems he was asked not to talk about a certain Norman Jewison, so he clearly decides to tell us what he can't talk about, but really. This is quite silly. Since April of this year we've been discussing HURRICANE here on AICN. It's been getting strong word of mouth all the way up through August. There have been several brief reviews that I haven't put out on the site because other than saying Denzel deserves a golden metal dude... They didn't go into anything else. But Anton saw it... he just can't review it. But... like a good guy, he saw many other films that he can talk about, so read on...
Friday the 17th
So I'm… somewhere, I don't think it was Bistro, on Wednesday night talking to this guy who turns out to be with Universal. He apparently knows who I am, but I can't for the life of me remember if I've ever met him before. He asks me if I was going to be seeing the Hurricane on Friday night, and I said I probably wasn't, I was leaning towards Guinevere. But he starts really selling the film, offering to make sure I got a nice seat down in the Reserved section near Denzel, etc. etc. So I caved and said sure, get me the ticket and I'll go. Then he caps it off with, and I'm not kidding,
"OK, but it's a rough cut, so you can't review it."
I just looked at him. We'd been talking for a while and I KNOW he knows what AICN is about. And here he is, dangling a ticket for some Oscar bait in front of my nose, but insisting I not review it.
"It's not like I won't mention that it's not the finished product", I said.
"Well, but Norman didn't want any press screenings, so it wouldn't be fair to…"
"Norman's a baby. What, I'm going to slag it because of the color separation? Give me some credit."
"No, really, I need you to promise."
It was like some stupid high school game. "Look, where is Norman?", I asked. "I'll straighten this up with him directly."
"He's busy getting the sound done on the print."
Oh. I opened my mouth to say something terribly Wilde-ish and out came three strange, baffling words- "Sure, I promise." Weird. I didn't think I was that drunk. But there it was, I'd given my word. So I can't review the Hurricane, even though Denzel is terrific (but the rest of the cast a little wasted and their characters not given much depth, as the focus is so squarely on Ruben) and the script is really superb and it hits all the right emotional buttons, this true story of horrific injustice and courageous Canadians fighting to right those wrongs. (The audience was in hysterics at every Canuck reference, especially the Eaton's box.) I just can't tell you how expertly Norman (that's Jewison, by the way) weaves together the past and present until both are living, breathing things in Ruben Carter's life. Nope, I gave my word.
Sorry.
So, I will review these films instead...
Third World Cop (Jamaica 1999, directed by Chris Browne)
A blacksploitation movie with a reggae beat, Third World Cop is a giddy ride from beginning to end. Created by the team that put together Dancehall Queen, and directed by the nephew of the director of the Harder They Come, this film deserves a little attention in the States.
Like Dancehall Queen this film speaks the voice of the street, in this case the underworld of Kingston. The movie never loses sight of the fact that it is entertainment, and even wears its QT and John Woo influences with pride. Paul Campbell is dynamite in the lead- Hollywood should be stealing him sometime soon. The movie is very funny, too, and bodes well for the future of Jamaican comedies.
Jamaica's is a relatively new film industry, and at this point its films often crackle with a recognizable energy, and refuse to stop to engage in po-mo camera tricks or layers of irony. It's no different here. Third World Cop will grab ya from the very first scene.
Fever (USA 1999, directed by Alex Winter)
Fever is a reasonably stylish mess, but its dark art direction can't hide the inconsistencies in the plot.
A young artist, living alone in his scuzzy apartment, whose paranoia mounts as the bodies start piling up. Part of the problem with Fever is that its stylistic influences (Polanski in particular) lay too close to the surface, and it can't be good thing for a film when you flash onto another, 'classic' film at certain key moments (especially when that other film stars Catherine Deneuve.) Also, the tangled backstory and plot, while 'resolved' at the end, still leave too many questions left unanswered. It makes for a disappointing finish. The film prior to that is nicely claustrophobic, however, and Winter does show a good eye as a director. Henry Thomas also does a good job in the lead. Did you recognize those two names? They provide the film with some pop culture cache: Alex Winter was the other half of Bill & Ted, while Henry Thomas was of course the lead in E.T. (not the walking plant, the other one.)
A disappointment over all from the man who co-created Freaked.
Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (Japan 1985, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The OTHER Kurosawa's debut feature, this is a bizarre little film, as strange a first film as Eraserhead. It was produced as a 'pink' film, soft-cope porn for dirty old Japanese men, but Kurosawa mucks with the genre horribly and produces something best described as an episode of 90210 with a script by Monty Python and Luis Bunuel and directed by Jacques Demy.
Oddities abound, not just in the oversexed campus setting but the spontaneously philosophical dialogue and even the casting (Juzo Itami palys the psych teacher.) It's wonky and rough, but it shows flashes of Kurosawa's later trademarks (including genre subversion and out-of-left-field endings.) Strange, strange stuff.
Bullets Over Summer (HK/China 1999, directed by Wilson Yip)
Bullets Over Summer is your typical Hong Kong multi-genred party, staggering drunkenly from cop comedy to cop drama to romance to Woo-ish moral dilemmas. And there ain't nothing wrong with that.
The movie opens with an amazingly goofy sequence in a convenience store. We meet cop partners Mike and Brian- Brian is hopelessly immature, while Mike is the 'responsible' one. We also meets the baddies, in a sequence strangely reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs (just to bring the quotes full circle, I suppose.) Mike and Brian torment their hapless informant (another great scene) and are put on the track of a weapons dealer. From there, the film takes off and becomes a hilarious HK-variant on Stakeout, complete with an insane granny and the jailbait god-niece of the informant. The pregnant dry cleaner across the street works into the mix, and the movie drifts lazily towards more serious, romantic terrain. Eventually everyone shares a nice home-cooked meal before the good guys and bad guys start popping caps.
Bullets Over Summer won't start any new trends, and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. But it's reassuring somehow that whatever else happens in the world of movies, HK can still pump out light, fun romps like this.
